How the Study Of Language Sparked the Cognitive Revolution

As writers, we value the power of words. We don't often consider language's scientific significance as the first direct portal to the brain and cognition.

Complexity in LanguageLanguage represents a mystery of the mind that has been explored for ages, with an exponentially increasing complexity. Think of all that must take place for you to read and understand this sentence alone. And in most cases, the communication is almost instantaneous, an astounding feet of computing power.

Skinner believed that language was a simple matter of training and years of experience, similar to training pigeons with huge brains. In 1957, Chomsky wrote a scathing review of B. F. Skinner’s (1957) most important work on language, Verbal Behavior. In his short review Chomsky dismantled Skinner’s argument deftly, labeling the idea of language “through reinforcement [or training] ... quite empty” (p. 12). In one mighty stroke, Chomsky tore apart the most respected theory of language, revealing the hollow center.

Noam Chomsky's new visionChomsky ripped through the old view with the ease of a genius, suggesting that all humans are born with hardwiring in the brain that prepared them to learn any language. This programming was the result of millions of years of evolution in the human brain. Chomsky's view shocked both linguists and psychologist, making the brain far more complex than Skinner had imagined. Humans, according to Chomsky, are born ready to learn language.

A new regimeAs a consequence of the linguistic breakthrough, ripples of influence washed through all of academia, with whole new fields of study springing up rapidly. New departments were popping up on campuses across the United States and Europe, Chomsky having opened the black treasure box of the brain. Language was now seen as an entry point into the inner workings of the mind.

In his continued scholarship, Chomsky broke language apart and put the pieces back together again, meticulously studying and observing language as the means of acquiring data, hypothesizing, and experimenting. Chomsky envisioned language as a set of building blocks from which any individual can create and understand an infinite variety of utterances. This is sometimes referred to as transformational or generative grammar.

This new transformational model accounted well for the complexity of human language. Chomsky’s work in the late 1950’s established the mental mechanisms that could manipulate words, phrases, and clauses into an infinite number of structures that an average speaker can both produce and process.

Breaking down the language to the fundamental pieces that are combined and recombined made possible the concept of computing and computer languages. Chomsky opened the door to computers and at the same time gave birth to a plethora of new fields of study such as computer science, cognitive science, modern linguistics, neuroscience, neurophilosophy, evolutionary psychology, and many more. All computer technology can trace some of it's history back to Chomsky's cognitive revolution.

About the Writer

I am a former English professor, turned writer, but my secret passions include web design, social media, technology, Spanish, neuroscience, construction, landscaping, and bonsai on the side. I love to blog at http://www.zipminis.com, and I also write for BC Blog, Technorati, Blog Critics, and Social Media Today.